Third Death
by keep my issues drawn
Summary: Kieren wants to make people care. He wants to make them remember her. He's heard that a person dies two times: once when they stop breathing and once when their name is said for the last time. Amy has died two times already; Kieren is determined to stall her third death for as long as possible. -In which Kieren mourns Amy and Simon helps him


"I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time."

-Banksy

* * *

The death of your Best Dead Friend Forever isn't something you ever really get over. Kieren knows that it's going to be a really long time before he can wake up in the morning and not believe for a minute or two that Amy is still alive. Even then, he knows there will always be a horrible feeling that something is missing, someone is missing. There's a hole in his chest that he can't quite fill and the pain is something that he still isn't used to, even two months later. What hurts the most is that after a week or two, everyone seems to have forgotten about it. Maxine has left Roarton with little more than a fine and a stern warning and Kieren hasn't felt this angry since he found Rick with a knife in his head.

It's funny, really; before the rising, Kieren felt so empty of any feeling but despair and even that left him feeling deflated and broken but now he is filled up with anger, it lifts him up and he wants to scream and shout and let there be another person who is there to raise their voice, to say, this is wrong, this needs to change. He is burning with anger and fear and loathing and even the despair and the pain doesn't bring him to the bottom his time. It only makes him want to shout louder. He doesn't mourn in silence or in a place where no one can find him this time. He mourns in public, he mourns loudly, he wants to make sure people remember. Kieren Walker is done with being silent.

Of course, it isn't safe for Kieren to be as loud as he wants to be. He doesn't wear the make-up anymore or his contacts. He doesn't just stand there while people insult him to his face. But he still attends the give-back scheme, still is wary of the HVF. He is living in a world where killing him would be remarkably easy, a world where only a few would stand up and say that killing him is wrong. He wants Amy to be remembered, there is a burning desire inside him that wants to make everyone in Roarton who didn't stand up for the PDS sufferers to feel guilt, but he knows that not everything he wants to achieve is possible. Not in a place like this - no, not in a world like this.

The flaming anger isn't the only thing in his life, of course; there's Simon and his family and his fellow sufferers who seem to be becoming his friends. They are the people who actually care, the ones who have told Kieren how truly sorry they are. Kieren is not the only one who has lost a friend. PDS sufferers are going missing and getting shot and it only makes his anger worse as he realises that no one except the PDS sufferers themselves seem to care.

Kieren wants to make them care. He wants to make them remember. He's heard that a person dies two times: once when they stop breathing and once when their name is said for the last time. Amy has died two times already; Kieren is determined to stall her third death for as long as possible.

* * *

Before the rising, before his suicide, Kieren always assumed that zombies - because, let's face it, that's what really he is - wouldn't sleep. Then again, he never assumed that there would be a cure for zombies either. All that he learnt from video games and tv and films turned out to be completely useless in the end. Reality tends to be very different from fantasy.

He may still sleep, but he doesn't sleep as much as he used to before he killed himself and he sleeps even less now that Amy's gone. Normal things seemed pointless when he came back and they seem even more pointless now that Amy isn't alive. When Amy isn't making some comment in his ear or laughing about how different their lives are now, everything just seems superficial and fake. There are still things going on: he's still going to the Give Back Scheme, still talking to Simon and talking and joking and yet every time a laugh escapes his lips he wonders why Amy isn't laughing too and the fact of her death strikes him with a pain that feels so new every time he thinks about it. He still can't quite get to grips with the fact that he's never going to hear her make an inappropriate comment again or link her arm through his and demand that they go on a daytrip. She'll never tell him how 'morgeous' he is again and the phrase 'Best Dead Friend Forever' will never pass anyone's lips but Kieren's, and even then he will only be addressing Amy's grave.

He hasn't visited her since the funeral. Sometimes he'll wander through Roarton and find his feet leading him there but he'll make a turn just before he arrives, finding himself somewhere else, somewhere where her death doesn't sting him so keenly, somewhere where he can forget for a minute, an hour if he's lucky. He knows that Amy would want him to keep going, to live his life, but everything seems muted, washed out since Amy left the world.

Amy once asked him how many he'd have to travel before he could be himself, and he knows that now he can be who he truly is in Roarton. He can be the PDS sufferer that he is, he can be the person that he is underneath the make-up and the contacts. He can do it; it would just be so much easier if Amy were by his side. He needs her whispering in his ear, laughing at how pointless the Give Back Scheme is and he needs her to remind him why he's still doing this, why he's still making his way through every day rather than running away or finding a way to end it again. It's not like he hasn't thought about whether or not he should finish the job that he started five years ago. Amy was one of the people who stopped him from doing just that. Without Amy, it's harder. But he has his family - they are his main reason, he knows it would destroy them if he left - and he has Simon. Every time he thinks about ending it he can see his family and Simon looking down at his grave with a mixture of disappointment and despair and so he doesn't do it. Sometimes he can even see Amy too, scolding him for what he's done.

Briefly, he wonders if Heaven is real. If he was there in-between his death and coming back and just can't remember it. If he would see Amy there if he died for a second time, permanently. But he dismisses the thought as quickly as he can. His family need him. Simon needs him. What ifs are not a viable reason for anything and they hurt more than they'll ever help.

He misses Amy so much that is burns, that he wants to hurt himself, wants to hurt other people, but he knows that he won't. He isn't silent about her, he doesn't sit back and do nothing but he isn't rioting or screaming at the top of his lungs. It wouldn't make any difference. But he'll bring her up in conversations and gradually he notices a few people nodding, beginning to think about her, to realise that Maxine did something horribly, horribly wrong.

When the pain is at its worst, he goes to Simon who drops whatever he is doing and takes Kieren aside and will hold him for as long as Kieren needs to be held. It doesn't fill the gaping hole that Amy left behind but it is a reminder that all pain will fade and there is hope and life and things that are good and right and just because Amy is gone doesn't mean that she would want him to give up all of that. Kieren can remember those truths more clearly when Simon's arms are around him, when their lips meet. The two of them remember Amy the most clearly, the two of them will talk about her for hours. Sometimes, Phillip will meet Kieren and Simon in the street and Kieren can see in the man's eyes how much his life has changed since Amy died. He thinks Amy would be proud that she has affected the lives of them so much and yet he knows it would break her to know that they could not move on. Kieren tells Philip that and is granted a thankful smile in return before he makes his way down the road.

Kieren gets less angry as time goes on. He still sees Maxine's face in his nightmares and he still gets the urge to hurt, but it begins to calm down with time. The pain fades too, after a while, but it never really goes away. Kieren will dream of Amy's face and of the day they properly met after they came back to Roarton and he hates that she is gone but reminds himself that he really loves that she was there. The fact is that Amy Dyer changed him, she helped him, not by making him a new person but by helping him embrace the person that he already was. Without her, where would he be? Where would any of them be?

And so he thinks of Amy. He remembers her. He will not let her die a third time.


End file.
